An entrance to the city's first Slow Zone in the Claremont section of the Bronx. (Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

A turn off the busy lanes of Southern Boulevard in the Bronx promptly takes a driver off that roadway onto the mostly residential streets of Claremont. Two months ago, drivers barely took their feet off the gas pedal as they made the turn. Now, however, they are greeted by hard-to-miss 20 mph signs and large white numbers painted on the street’s asphalt. If those signs don’t catch drivers’ attention, the speed bumps will.

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) launched a Neighborhood Slow Zone program this fall that reduces speed limits from 30 mph to 20 mph and adds safety measures, such as speed bumps, within a select area. The first and currently only existing Slow Zone in the city was created in the Claremont section of the Bronx in late November. A 20 mph zone program in London has already proven to reduce vehicle speeds and accidents by as much as 40 percent. Now several neighborhoods in Brooklyn are applying for their own Neighborhood Slow Zones, hoping for the same results.

“Apparently there is a practice among drivers to drive more than the speed limit suggests is legal. One of the ideas is that if we lower the speed limit to 20 then maybe people will adhere to that or at least recognize that they’re in a residential area,” says Ben Petok, communications director for Brooklyn Councilman Stephen Levin, who is supporting the Slow Zone applications of three Brooklyn neighborhoods—Boerum Hill, Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights.

The New York City speed limit is 30 mph, but reduced speed zones exist directly in front of schools. The Slow Zone program, however, creates a whole area, around a quarter of a mile (approximately five by five blocks), where the speed limit is 20.

Drivers know they are entering a Slow Zone with standard speed limit signs, as well as gateways. Speed bumps also decrease vehicle speed, calm traffic and remind drivers that they are in a 20 mph zone, says DOT press secretary Scott Gastel.

In addition to 20 mph signs, Slow Zones also feature speed bumps, like this one in front of a Claremont elementary school. (Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

New York City has reduced the number of traffic fatalities by 35 percent compared to 2001, according to the August 2010 New York City Pedestrian Safety Study & Action Plan. But the city wants to lower them even more.

In order to make its streets even safer city officials looked towards another major international city, London. A study that measures the effect of 20 mph traffic speed zones on road injuries in London from 1986 to 2006 found that 20 mph zones led to approximately a 40 percent reduction in road accidents and fatalities, and the number of serious injuries or deaths in children were reduced by half.

Using the British program as a model, the DOT selected an area in the South Bronx as its first Slow Zone because of its crash statistics, community interest and easily definable borders, says Gastel. He adds that at this time it’s still in an evaluation period.

But in a little over two months, residents are already seeing its impact.

Joanne Morales, who has a young daughter and lives in a building just inside the zone, says the Slow Zone is definitely making a big difference, and now cars slow down and stop instead of speeding.

“It helps since we’ve got kids crossing and coming out of schools,” says Ruben Cadet, who also lives in the Claremont Slow Zone. But he adds that the speed bumps are the measure that is really slowing down drivers rather than the 20 mph signs.

Anna Rivera, a driver who resides in the Slow Zone, admits that she is now driving slower because of the speed bumps, and notices that there are fewer accidents and speeding cars.

Her friend Jimmy DeJesus agrees with her, but adds that the zone hasn’t stopped every driver from speeding. Still, he is happy with the results.

Other areas in the city, including four in Brooklyn, submitted applications last week for their own Slow Zones. Any neighborhood can apply, and the DOT will consider factors such as crash data, proposed borders, presence of schools, senior centers, daycare centers and small parks in the zone, and letters of support.

“Why these specific neighborhoods would be good homes for Slow Zones is really because they are family neighborhoods with a lot of parents with small children, with school-aged children who walk to their local schools and it’s a safety hazard to have cars speeding through,” says Petok.

The aim of Slow Zones, in addition to lowering the number of accidents, is to reduce noise and traffic in residential neighborhoods, says Gastel. Cut through traffic—cars taking short cuts to avoid busier streets—have plagued some Brooklyn neighborhoods, such as Prospect Heights, which are near major Brooklyn roadways and the Atlantic Yards construction site, the future home of the Barclays Center.

A busy Atlantic Avenue intersection that borders several residential neighborhoods in Brooklyn. (Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

“Given our location surrounded by major arterial roads, Prospect Heights experiences substantial cut-through traffic and, with our long blocks, drivers often speed in order to make it through the next traffic light before it turns to red,” says Tom Boast, vice president of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and head of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Slow Zone Application Committee.

Strong support for these zones from residents, community groups and local politicians was evident at a January 21 informational meeting held in Park Slope ahead of the DOT’s Feb. 3 Slow Zone application deadline.

Eric McClure, president of Park Slope Neighbors, one of the community groups that sponsored the meeting, says that “overwhelming the people [at the meeting] who thought it was a good idea felt that it would make the streets safer and that they consider vehicle speeds an issue of concern in the community.”

The Brooklyn Paper recently reported that some residents in Greenwood Heights are against a Park Slope Slow Zone because they believe once vehicles leave the 20 mph area and enter their neighborhood they will start speeding. But the earlier mentioned study on London’s 20 mph zones found that no evidence of road fatalities migrating to adjacent areas, and that traffic deaths in those places fell by an average of 8 percent.

McClure has encouraged Greenwood Heights to apply for their own 20 mph area. “It would be nice if we were just on big contiguous neighborhood Slow Zone,” he says.

Residents gathered in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Not only did the festivities bring the Chinese-American community together, but it also provided an economic boost for local vendors.

Officer Kevin Brennan, 29, is still listed in critical condition, but remains stable today at Bellevue Hospital. Brennan was shot while chasing a suspect near the Bushwick Houses public housing projects in Brooklyn last night.

Read more at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Police-Officer-Shot-Brooklyn-370-Bushwick-138450134.html

A barge transports scrap metal on the Gowanus Canal. (Gillian Mohney / The Brooklyn Ink)

A toxic stew has flowed through the Gowanus Canal for nearly a century, but the dream of clean water seemed a bit closer this week, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released plans that envision a clear waterway by the end of the decade. And in a meeting in Carroll Gardens last Tuesday, the EPA seemed to have won over some neighborhood skeptics, too.

The plans are not final—the report is the latest benchmark in the long process towards cleaning the canal, declared a Federal Superfund site in 2010.

But the agency introduced seven different proposals for the cleanup to nearly 200 members of the public. Most of the plans focus on dredging and removing waste before fortifying the canal against similar contamination.

The canal, which acts as an occasionally pungent barrier between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, spent the better part of the last century as a depository for overflowing sewage pipes, manufacturing gas plants and street runoff. According to the EPA, the canal is so heavily polluted with PCB’s, heavy metals, and other contaminants that a six-inch layer of unnatural sludge, with the consistency of “mayonnaise,” lines the canal floor.  

While the EPA introduced multiple proposals, officials did highlight the two most likely options being considered. Both possibilities involve dredging ten feet of the extremely polluted soft sediment from the canal floor and replacing it with layers of clay, rock and sand. One option would take the additional step of adding a cement-like mixture to prevent further pollution from contaminants that seep up from underneath the waterway.

Both plans would take eight to 10 years, and the EPA estimates that the project will cost between $351 million to $456 million dollars. The first step would be a two- to three-year design phase that is expected to be completed by 2015, with subsequent dredging ending as early as 2020.

When the canal was first designated as a Superfund site, some residents—and the Bloomberg administration—initially opposed the designation, citing the EPA’s bureaucratic nature and the stigma attached to the Superfund name, could discourage new real estate development. But community representatives say the agency’s adherence to deadlines and its willingness to engage with neighborhood residents and representatives have made them more supportive of the project.

Hans Hesselein, director of special projects at the environmental group, Gowanus Canal Conservancy, said the group has been impressed by the EPA’s performance, after some initial trepidation over their involvement. “We think the EPA is doing a tremendous amount of work,” said Hesselein.

Joshua Verleun, an attorney with the water conservation group, Riverkeeper Alliance, says that fact that the EPA has met every scheduled deadline for the past two years makes has made him cautiously optimistic about the work ahead. “I would say that my experience has been very positive,” said Verleun. “We’re moving closer to the goal of a cleaner Gowanus, sooner rather than later.”

Even some in the Gowanus community who remain wary of the EPA seem increasingly optimistic about the area’s prospects in light of the project. Bill Appel, of the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation, says he was opposed to the Superfund designation, believing it could depress local real estate development, but is now hopeful that the project will finally help to turn the industrial area into a residential neighborhood.

But he remains unhappy about the project’s current condition. “It looks like Dresden in World War II,” Appel said. The canal, he said, “is dividing two vibrant communities.” He remains concerned about how the EPA will safely dredge and dispose of the toxic muck, but he has also become part of the 60-person team on the EPA’s Community Advisory Group, which acts as a liaison between the agency and local residents.

Meanwhile, the Gowanus area has seen a surge in building over the past year. A new luxury apartment building opened two blocks from the canal last year and Whole Foods is requesting a permit to build a store near the waterfront in 2013.

Appel hopes that these new developments and the EPA’s clean up of the canal, will turn Gowanus into a desirable Brooklyn neighborhood.  “Change is very difficult, but if you stand still, you die,” said Appel. “For a community, for a city to remain vibrant and competitive there has to be some change.”

Read more at the NYDailyNews.com.

Read more at NY1.com.

Do or Dine's fun signs. (Photo: Gloria Dawson / The Brooklyn Ink)

After the foie gras doughnut and the Nippon-Nachos –– dumplings covered in cheese, pico do gallo and mango sour cream –– it was time for soup. Or at least a soup bowl. Inside there was only crumbled butterscotch bacon. My guest and I eyed each other uncertainly.

We were sitting next to a wooden mouse toy on wheels, below a slowly spinning disco ball. Earlier I had noticed Band-Aids holding up a poster in the bathroom downstairs. The dishes are just as absurd as the décor. There’s a feeling here that anything can happen.

Then it gets really weird. Our waiter moves in to delicately pour the peanut butter and pumpkin soup. The formal service is part of the surprise at Do or Dine. It keeps things from becoming completely nonsensical and let’s you know you’re in on the joke.

How do these guys balance the fun and the formality? I went back to spend the day with the Do or Dine team to see how it all goes down. Co-owner Justin Warner warned me it could be a very boring day. I doubted it.

Finding the restaurant can be part of the fun or frustration, depending on your worldview. Once you get off the G train in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and head down Bedford Avenue it still takes an eagle’s eye to confirm that you are at the right location. A faded red, yellow and green awning announces a West Indian and American restaurant named B’s Taste Buds. I ducked under the awning to see a newer addition to the underside. It’s a black sign that reads “Do or Dine.” The original sign still throws people off. A few customers each night stop in and try in vain to get take-out from B’s.

The food that is served here is presented in a setting of high- and low-end details, thanks to another co-owner Perry Gargano, also known as the man upstairs. He’s a jewelry designer by day and doesn’t spend much time at the restaurant, but his presence is felt. He is responsible for the look of the joint. The décor, like your dinner, is filled with jokes that you are in on and a few that might take you a minute to figure out. Looking up, the lights are strings of black wiring coming out of large flowered tea saucers and the bulbs are inside of teacups. The ceiling is arched in the center of the restaurant and is painted in thick black pop art style lines to look like beams of wood. One “beam” is painted yellow –– very much like a Roy Lichtenstein. Behind the bar there’s a gilded  mirror with a fork stabbed in the bottom and a rabbit mask hanging from the top.

Many of the dishes have a story behind them. Take the Nippon-Nachos. The idea comes from George McNeese, another owner. Warner says that McNeese has a theory that all foods are either a sandwich or a nacho, ravioli or spaghetti. Something inside something or piled on top of something else. “What is both?” Warner asks. That would be the Nippon-Nachos.  Dishes like these are created when McNeese and Warner get drunk and do a bit of cooking and mental Ping-Pong, says Warner.

The cuisine is hard to classify, by design. It’s the customers that go with the flow that they want to cater to. They like those who gleefully sop up the foie gras and jelly mixture oozing out of their donuts while exclaiming, “This place is insane!” “We’re not into people who have crazy attitudes. We’re not into catering to them,” Warner says. “Bed-Stuy isn’t the place to be a dickhead.”

Warner, McNeese and co-owner Luke Jackson met at the Modern, the fine-dining restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art. Warner and McNeese were servers and Jackson was behind the bar.

The trio’s different personalities act as checks and balances. Warner’s got energy, and dresses like a guy who raps about wine, which he does. Jackson is the mellow worrier, serving spirits and wry humor in a top hat with curls popping out. McNeese rounds out the group, soft spoken, heavily pierced and wearing a bent fork as a bracelet. Warner says they’ve learned everything from Danny Meyer, the famed restaurateur who owns The Modern.

It’s hard to imagine Meyer jumping up on a bench to change disco ball lights at one of his restaurants, but that was just how Warner started his day. Warner calls over his shoulder, bulb in hand, “See if I don’t explode.”

Just as that job was done, Jackson comes over with some bad news. The restaurant had scored a B grade on their New York City Health Department inspection. The restaurant now was required to hang the large green B in their window, a scarlet letter of sorts. “It’s meaningless, but I worry about the impact,” says Jackson. Warner’s plan is to surround the grade, which must be posted on the restaurant window, with positive reviews of the restaurant.

When the guys responsible for dinner proudly say, “We’re not chefs,” you might not expect rave reviews. But diners and critics alike, from the New York Times to Thrillist, have embraced Do or Dine’s fearless and fun cooking style.

Still, that popularity comes with a cost. “It makes it hard to feel confident experimenting,” says Justin Warner when he discussed the restaurant’s hype. “People who come here now will get upset if a dish they’ve heard about, or had before and want again, is not on the menu.” Dishes like fish and some chips and chicken and woffals –– a Cornish game hen topped with chicken liver sitting on a fried-liver-spiked waffle covered in a blood orange sauce –– have become cult favorites.

Speaking of cult favorites, Warner has to pick up some doughnuts.

We head off to Dough, the shop a few blocks away that supplies the pastry that the team will fill with foie gras and jelly for the evening’s dinner.  Dough is a shop after Warner’s and the rest of the Do or Dine team’s heart, with flavors like blood orange and pumpkin pie.

Back at the restaurant Jackson’s wife Lurie Jackson is making fresh juice for the cocktails. “She’s my secret weapon. She helps me appear organized,” he says. The staff is eating burritos. “Watch this,” says Jackson. “You’re going to witness The Tortoise and the Hare here.” Warner shows his fast feasting ability, and finishes his burrito in a few bites, just as Jackson has settled down to start his.

During lunch, the group flips through a few issues of Lucky Peach magazine, a publication by David Chang, the chef and owner behind Momofuku restaurants. Chang’s fusion Asian dishes and love of kimchi and pork belly have influenced many new quirky restaurants and young chefs in New York City as of late. It’s not clear where the magazines have come from, but I do know what they think of them. “Found it in the gutter,” says Jackson.  I realized that I have not seen any of Chang’s influences on the Do or Dine menu.

After lunch, it’s time to get down to business.  Jackson asks Brooke Sweeten, Warner’s girlfriend and a waitress at Do or Dine, for the “end of night blah, blah, blah,” which turns out to be a sort of sign-in sheet that he’s trying to implement. He’s also looking over the proposed brunch menu. “What’s the hangover helper?” Jackson asks Warner. “Like Hamburger Helper,” Warner replies. “Yeah, I get it, but what is it?” says Jackson.

Warner answers vaguely. He still has the health department letter grade on his mind. He sets about Scotch taping together the restaurant’s positive reviews. He wonders aloud if he could make an edible tape out of Scotch whiskey. Jackson wants to wait to frame the reviews before they hang them. But Warner doesn’t want to wait. When he’s done surrounding the letter grade with accolades he seems satisfied. “It’s really not distracting from the B at all,” he says. But it doesn’t matter it’s the fuck you that counts.”

Somehow they make it work. At Do or Dine the dishes come out smoothly, the wine is poured correctly and as Warner glides the length of the small restaurant he holds his arms behind his back, one hand clasping the other elbow, a dead give-away that despite his baggy jeans and shiny blue trucker hat this boy has been trained. Then he not so subtly sneaks sips from a tall boy of Narragansett Lager that he’s left at the service window.

“There’s just a little too much seriousness in the cocktail world,” says Jackson. The same goes for restaurants, with their organic and farm-to-table talk. Not that these owners don’t understand seasonal and organic ingredients. They’ll add small touches, like seasonal jellies in the foie gras donut.  But, Jackson continued, “I’m not worried about being precious about it. I want to be the kind of bar that you feel comfortable doing shots and beer and you can get a great Manhattan.”

The epitome of high-low equation that the restaurant embraces can be seen in the Do or Dine pickleback.  A traditional pickleback is a shot of whiskey chased by a shot of pickle brine, but this one is much more. Order the drink and Jackson places a clear sphere of brine in a white ceramic dish next to a shot of whiskey.

What Jackson does worry about is making it all work. “We’re doing very well here and still can’t make it turn. We will though, just a matter of getting out of the hump,” he says as he wrote a check for a delivery of fish. The last check he wrote to the vendor bounced and the bill says ‘No Checks,’ but no matter.

It’s not just the bills that Jackson worries about. “Owning a restaurant turns me into a conservative or at least a libertarian,” says Jackson, sipping from a bottle of Negra Modeol and discussing his frustrations with city bureaucracies. In addition to the new less-than-stellar health inspection rating, it took the restaurant a few months to get a liquor license. Chatter doesn’t stop him from attentive service. He stops a server from pouring a glass of cava for a customer in the dining room while at the bar. “Pour it table side, yeah?” he tells the server. And off the bottle and glass go on a silver platter.

Across from the bar in the small kitchen two new chefs, Josh Feigin and Nick Subic, are prepping ‘heart attacks’ –– peppers stuffed with cheese and salmon and deep-fried.

McNeese and Warner pop from the front of the house to the basement and into the kitchen throughout the night. They’re doing experiments down in the basement. Warner feeds Jackson a spoonful of tapioca. He brings me vanilla essence power that he pretends to snort before sprinkling a bit on my hand for me to smell.

By 7 p.m. on a Tuesday the restaurant is full. Each owner has cracked open a beer and it’s hard to tell if they’re working hard or hardly working. That old saying pops into my head. “If you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life.” And another thought comes to mind. When I had asked Warner why they opened a restaurant he says, “We basically wanted a place for us to hang out.” It’s not the most sound business plan, but so far, so good.

Do or Dine, 1108 Bedford Avenue (Lexington Avenue), Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

A crowded street in Sunset Park. The 2010 Census shows that this neighborhood is now home to the largest Chinese enclave. (Tiffany Ap / The Brooklyn Ink)

Asian-American civic groups are pushing for redistricting in Brooklyn that would give growing Asian ethnic groups a district and representation of their own.

Claiming that the Asian vote is too diluted across many districts, the groups are hoping to splice together sections of Sunset Park, Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights in a new district that would have a majority population of Chinese immigrants and their descendants.

After holding a public hearing last month, the New York State Legislative Task Force is expected to release a first draft of new district lines in January. District boundaries are remapped every decade to reflect demographic changes demonstrated by the federal census. If drawn correctly, districts should be areas of people that share some a common denominator. The law also stipulates that it must be contiguous and reasonably compact: its length should be no more than twice its width.

“We’re seeing in places like Sunset Park—and we’re seeing throughout New York—that the Asian population is currently at 20 percent or more and we think that could necessitate, or in theory you could argue for, the creation of more Asian-American districts,” says Rachael Fauss, the Policy and Research Manager for Citizens Union.

Research from the group shows that 15 assembly districts in the state have Asian-American populations of more than 20 percent and three are at 40 percent or more— not that you would ever know it by looking at the state legislature. No Asian-American has ever won an election in Brooklyn and currently, there is only one Asian-American representative, Grace Meng of Queens in a lower house made up of 212 legislators.

Meng’s district encompasses Flushing and was created during the last redistricting in 2000 to better represent the flourishing Chinatown in Queens. The new lines helped lead to Meng’s election as the first Asian-American in the state legislature.

“They drew that with kind of an eye towards empowering the Asian-American community,” says James Hong who works with the MinKwon organization and the Asian-American Community Coalition On Redistricting and Democracy (ACCORD). “I feel that everybody thinks that was well done.”

“But other than that, most of the Asian-American communities—East Asian, South Asian—were cut up. There was definitely potential for much stronger pluralities. Instead they were cut up into two, three, four, or five districts. I hope other districts will do what that district did, which is to keep a community of interest together.”

A map of the Assembly Districts that have an Asian-American population above 20 percent. (Map courtesy of Citizens Union)

The current district boundaries were drawn using the 2000 Census numbers when Asian-Americans were 5.5 percent of the state’s population. The latest 2010 Census shows that the Asian population surged by a third in New York City and is now 7.3 percent of the population, making it the fastest growing racial group in the state.

Underrepresentation is not a uniquely Asian problem. “There’s also been a growth among the Latino population,” Fauss states. “Something we’ve been pointing out is that the state legislature doesn’t currently reflect the diversity of New York state.”

The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that districts not be drawn to weaken or abridge minority voters.

Various civic groups say that the status quo is doing precisely that, however. In Brooklyn, the neighboring Chinese communities in Bensonhurst, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge are split into several electoral districts.

Hong says Asian-Americans are denied the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the political process as a result:  “At almost every level of government and almost every neighborhood, you see that it is split up so collectively, their voice is weakened. They can’t really come to the polls and have a unified impact through the electoral process.”

The new lines must be drawn by next summer. ACCORD officials say that many people still misunderstand the reasoning behind their push for uniting sections of Sunset Park, Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights.

“We’ve said over and over again that this is not purely an attempt to get more Asian-Americans into office,” Hong said.  “Though if the districts happen the way we want them, that may happen in the next few years.”

He makes it clear they are not lobbying for any particular candidate either. “There are—and I think there will be—some white candidates or candidates of other ethnicities that represent an Asian community well and vice versa. You don’t necessarily have to have an Asian representative to represent an Asian community. That’s never been part of our platform.”

Their focus is on seeing voters empowered and keeping them in the same district when they belong in the same community of interest. “We’re saying, hey, there’s something that looks like voter dilution that’s happening as a result of these lines, and we’re just trying to remedy that.”

In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in Shaw v. Reno that race could not be the predominant factor in setting district lines, though it could be one component.

Jerry Vattamalla, a staff attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, says it’s not enough for one area to be dominated by any particular ethnic group to call for redistricting. The people need to “vote similarly and have similar interests.” Other areas the city taskforce will look at include common cultural background; shared language and language access needs; media markets; immigrant concerns; and public transportation.

Vattamalla says redistricting takes time and intense analysis because of all the competing interests. People grouped together by current districts may also have concerns about being split up in order to create this majority Asian-American district. “Nobody wants their community divided. That’s something the task force will have to decide on,” he said.

A rendition of what a deck over the BQE trench might look like. (Image courtesy of Dland Studio)

The bright sun was perfect for a bit of shopping. Bundled up in a coat and scarf, Heather Roslund joined the Saturday crowd that was walking the gauntlet of stalls on Union Avenue that comprises the McCarren Park Greenmarket.

McCarren Park is the only public green space of any size in North Brooklyn, but activists like Roslund are working hard to get the City to create new areas.

Union Avenue runs north into the park and dead-ends into Driggs Avenue, cutting off a small recreation area—on maps, a green triangle—from the rest of the park. But each Saturday, this part of Union Avenue hosts the local farmers’ market. The section of blacktopped road between the intersections with 12th Street and Driggs Avenue, normally accessible to automobiles, is blocked off with cones. Up and down the street, vendors sell seasonal produce, free-range eggs and grass-fed beef.

Although the market will remain, before long the road itself will be gone—literally wiped off the map. When that happens, this stretch of Union Avenue will be rezoned as parkland, and a space that is currently available for public use only for a few hours each Saturday will become permanently open.

Eventually, the blacktop will be torn up, but rezoning must precede any physical transformation of the land. A lot of paperwork remains to be done before the road can be demapped, as the procedure is called, but Roslund, who is chair of the Land Use Committee for Brooklyn’s Community District 1, can already envision uses for the open space to come.

“The idea of having it be a plaza space is really nice, which is the idea I’ve heard put forward most often. It could be really useful [even] without literally being more grass,” she said.

The transformation of Union Avenue is one of several initiatives currently being pursued by local officials, non-profits and citizen activist groups to address the severe lack of open space in this historically park-poor community. These initiatives range from the renovation of a vacant lot owned by the Parks Department to the construction of an ambitious elevated park over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that will reunite a long-sundered Williamsburg.

According to an open space study conducted by the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning, a non-profit coalition, Brooklyn’s Community District 1, which encompasses Williamsburg and Greenpoint, has only 0.6 acres of open space per 1,000 residents. The Department of City Planning suggests an open space ratio of at least 2.5 acres per 1,000 residents.

In Community District 6, which includes Park Slope, Red Hook and Gowanus, 6.1 percent of the total land area is set aside for open space. District 1, with Williamsburg and Greenpoint, is far more populous with far less open space—only 4.4 percent of the land area.

Every open space project in North Brooklyn proceeds in the long shadow of Bushwick Inlet Park—a park that exists mainly in the realm of political promises.

In 2005, Mayor Bloomberg made the promise—that the City would build a 28-acre waterfront park—to pacify opposition to the controversial rezoning of North Brooklyn. Bushwick Inlet Park was intended to revitalize the waterfront and provide more open space for the increased numbers of residents attracted by the rezoning. As envisioned, the park will be a series of open spaces and private developments linked by an esplanade, and will extend all the way from the Williamsburg Bridge to the tip of Greenpoint.

Six years later, however, Bushwick Inlet Park still has not materialized.

Roslund says it may take another 10 years or more for the new park to become a reality. At the time of the 2005 rezoning, six entities owned the land that that would make up the park. So far, the city has been able to buy out only three. On two of these properties, no ground has been broken for the park development.

“It’s been six years since the rezoning, and they’re only working on the first parcel,” said Roslund, who is also the president of 2plus3 Architects.

As progress toward Bushwick Inlet Park’s completion drags on, alternative open space projects become increasingly attractive.

So far, the Open Space Alliance, a local conservancy group, has spent about $50,000 on consultants and feasibility studies for the Union Avenue project. The rezoning process is a long and arduous one that winds its way through numerous city agencies. Before the community board’s Land Use Committee can approve the measure, it has to be certified by the Department of City Planning.

Another property under development is a vacant lot at 50 Kent Ave., once the site of a Department of Sanitation truck depot, which the City demolished in 2009. Now the Parks Department is turning the property—located on an industrial street a block from the East River—into open space.

An empty lot at 50 Kent Ave. that is mapped to become a part of Bushwick Inlet Park. (Photo by Brian Eha / The Brooklyn Ink)

Unlike Union Avenue, 50 Kent is already mapped as parkland—it will eventually form part of Bushwick Inlet Park—but it’s not currently useable by the public. The lot where the sanitation garage once stood is now a vast stretch of asphalt surrounded by a chain-link fence. Considerable imagination is needed to see it as a public space where people will want to hang out.

“Zoning-wise, it’s parkland. We just have to do some things to it to give people a reason to come and use it,” Joe Vance, a board member of OSA, said.

According to Stephanie Thayer, executive director of OSA and the Parks Department administrator for North Brooklyn, the Parks Department doesn’t have the funds to turn 50 Kent into a green park, so in the short term OSA is planning to turn the site into a space for concerts and other community events.

Roslund is excited by the possibilities, but wants more than rock concerts in the new facililty. “OSA has been working to move the focus away from just rock concerts to more varied programming. If the diversification is successful, that could be a really good thing for the community,” she said.

Vance cautioned, however, that remediation of the land may be necessary before anything new can be developed. There is a possibility that toxins from the sanitation plant leached into the soil. Still, the timetable for renovation looks good.

“More than likely the concerts will be held there next year,” he said.

The most ambitious open space proposal under consideration in North Brooklyn will do much more than provide opportunities for recreation: it will reconnect two halves of Williamsburg. The plan would create a green park to “deck over” a trench section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway between Broadway and Grand Street, thus undoing the bifurcation of that part of Brooklyn that occurred decades ago in one of the grand undertakings of famed urban planner Robert Moses, then chairman of the Tri-Borough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

The hope is that the new elevated park would reduce air pollution, end the division of Williamsburg’s Southside, ease the overuse of other recreation spaces, such as McCarren Park, and provide a draw, if not additional real estate, for commercial activity in the area.

The plan has political support, including from Councilwoman Diana Reyna (D–34), among other local politicians. Her deputy chief of staff, Bennett Baruch, called the BQE a “blight,” and drew a connection between the high rates of obesity and asthma in North Brooklyn and the lack of park space.

Parks already exist on either side of the BQE, and the goal of any new development, he said, will be “joining those spots and making it a more active and enjoyable experience for people.”

Ever since the construction of the BQE, residents on both sides of the highway have referred to those on the far side as being from “the other side”—a habit of speech that has become an ingrained and alienating attitude toward their ostensible neighbors.

Architecture firm Dland Studio has produced a conceptual plan for bridging the divided community. The plan breaks down into stages what will surely be a monumental and expensive undertaking. The first stage calls for the planting of trees on streets bordering the BQE and for the addition of greenery to the trench walls. Ultimately, a park would bridge the below-street-level trench, providing air-cleaning vegetation and much-needed recreation space.

There is also talk of providing space for residential or commercial buildings on a platform over the expressway. “This could be potentially very beneficial economically for this area,” Baruch said.

As for the expansion of McCarren Park, that little green triangle—which includes a dog run and a picnic area—may not be isolated for much longer. Once Union Avenue is rezoned, Vance said, the sidewalks will be taken up and the fences separating the former roadway from other areas of the park will come down. But people will be able to start enjoying the new space even before these changes take effect.

“We have physical changes we would like to see made. But the reality is, we can put up barriers [to block off the street] and it’s instantly usable by people,” he said.

Vance said that OSA has kept the plans for Union Avenue quiet until now because the organization doesn’t want to get people’s hopes up in the event the proposal might fall through. But signs are positive, and residents of Williamsburg and Greenpoint may find themselves with new parkland inside of a year or two. The big question remaining is what to do with the space.

“As soon as it’s certified and we’re sure it’s for real, we’ll start a public process to get ideas and start designing what it could be,” Vance said.

In an unusual plot twist in the all-too-familiar struggle between tenants and landlords, the residents of this building are withholding rent until apartment owner Alexander Varveris resolves ongoing building and housing violations. The tenants and Varveris have been in court for over a year, battling over maintenance issues and allegedly hazardous living conditions.

Apartment complex windows display signs that the tenants are on strike. (Maane Khatchatourian / The Brooklyn Ink)

The apartment has been identified as one of 22 multifamily buildings in the city most at risk of endangering the health and safety of residents due to deteriorating physical conditions.

While Varveris hasn’t addressed all the maintenance code violations, the residents have withheld as much as one-and-a-half years of rental payments, costing Varveris $35,000 to $50,000.

The case traces back to June of 2010 when the entire apartment experienced a two-month gas shortage, followed by a two-month electricity outage. Coupled with the severity of the apartment’s maintenance code violations as well as the tenants’ lengthy rent strike and collective front, this incident exemplifies how critical these situations can become and what a significant role outside agencies, such as tenants associations, the Legal Aid Society and city building and housing departments can play.

Marcela Mitaynes, a tenant counselor for Neighbors Helping Neighbors, which assists low-income Brooklyn residents facing problems with landlords, has been an active influence in the residents’ battle for their rights as tenants. After discovering violations, she banded the tenants together and encouraged them to press charges against Varveris.

She charged that what is going on in this incident, as in other similar cases, is a landlord’s attempt to get rid of low-rent-paying residents by ignoring their requests for repairs in order to make room for tenants willing and able to pay higher rent.

“This is the common pattern, the tenants fight until they get tired,” Mitaynes said. “Landlords are willing to wait it out. … These [buildings] are what they consider underdeveloped assets. Residents are paying $1,000 [on average in rent]. A landlord can get rid of them, make repairs, charge a higher price.”

Mitaynes said residents in the building are vulnerable to pressure. Some are undocumented immigrants who don’t speak English. Many are on welfare and all are low income. Landlords’ tactics, she said, include filing baseless lawsuits and making threats about contacting immigration services.

NHN and Legal Aid have emboldened the residents by helping them set demands, even urging them to amend their grievances once their laundry list of wishes are met. Aside from not paying rent, residents stopped paying gas and electricity bills for several months after a shared meter issue was discovered by National Grid and Con Edison. Repairs and renovations are now underway in their apartments.

I accompanied Mitaynes on two housing visits while she inspected and documented the repairs that were made in various apartment units, pointing out their flaws or additional issues that needed to be addressed.

Mold covers one tenant's bathroom ceiling. (Maane Khatchatourian / The Brooklyn Ink)

Although some of the projects appeared rushed and were aesthetically displeasing, they were vast improvements. Cracked windows, missing bathroom tiles and busted door frames are no longer in sight.

Varveris, who has owned the rent-stabilized apartment complex for 30 to 35 years, said he has never bullied his residents or forced them to move out by ignoring their demands. He said he has compromised time and time again to no avail. According to Varveris, NHN and Legal Aid “interfered” in the situation and created tension out of thin air.

“This is a tactic,” he said. “Some attorneys, Legal Aid attorneys, try to harm the landlord. … I have accommodated those tenants for years and years, have spent a minimum of $7,000 to $8,000 [on repairs]. I don’t mind doing the walk, but I will not allow the Legal Aid attorney to make me look like I’m a slum lord.”

Varveris said this court case blossomed out of a non-payment proceeding against one of the residents. The case was dismissed and the situation was later reversed as the tenants proceeded to take Varveris to court.

“The Legal Aid attorney, he brought HPD into the situation,” Varveris said. “HPD makes inspections, places violations. … I want an order from the judge compelling HPD to do an inspection in order to remove my violations.”

Roberta Bernstein, president of the Small Property Owners of New York, said outside agencies commonly and unnecessarily involve themselves in such cases.

“In my experience, any building that’s older has violations,” Bernstein said. “Local preservation groups will organize a building, will go in and get a tenant or a couple tenants to go along with them and list the number of violations. They direct the tenants not to pay rent and keep adding violations to the list.”

Bernstein said rent strikes are all too common. If residents were acting in good faith, she said they would pool their rent money in escrow. Residents said there is no escrow in their rent strike.

“These types of court cases are more prevalent in [rent-stabilized] buildings where, by virtue of being old buildings, the infrastructure needs more repair and is more costly to maintain,” she said.

No Gas, No Electricity, No Accountability

The rent strike grew out of unaddressed concerns over building and housing violations over a year ago that allegedly caused health problems for some residents.

According to the New York City Department of Buildings, Varveris and his Limited Liability Corporation Pennsy Corp. face 83 open building violations — almost half of which are dubbed hazardous to the life, health and safety of the building’s occupants — several dating back to 1993. Additionally, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has issued $6,339 in building fines and 114 housing violations.

Because the apartment complex is deteriorating and could contribute to a decline in the quality of the surrounding neighborhood, HPD press officer Juliet Morris said the case was assigned to the department’s Proactive Preservation Initiative in April. The city-wide program was launched at the beginning of this year to identify and address declining physical conditions in multifamily buildings.

Under the new initiative, 335 buildings were surveyed between January and August; 49 of them exhibited levels of distress that warranted further action and 22 of those demonstrated conditions severe enough to be referred to HPD’s Housing Litigation Division to initiate cases in housing court. Valveris’ building is on that list.

“It was referred to HLD after being surveyed because of the extent of violations,” Miller said in an e-mail. “We are seeking civil penalties and an order to correct. HPD is also appearing in a tenant action case for this site.”

Valveris’ apartment’s 75 violations are less extensive, however, than those charged against other buildings on the list — some have over 270 violations. Also, Brooklyn has 12 of the 22 facilities on the list, more than Manhattan and the Bronx, combined.

Concepcion Morastitla has no electricity meter. Con Edison doesn't even recognize her as a tenant. (Maane Khatchatourian/The Brooklyn Ink)

The tenants charge that the building at large experienced a two-month gas shortage in early July 2010 and a two-month electricity outage in early October. According to the Attorney General’s tenants’ rights guide, a landlord’s failure to provide heat or hot water on a regular basis is a breach of the warrant of habitability. Tenants may withhold rent as a result, but the landlord can sue the tenant for non-payment. The tenant may countersue for breach of the warranty.

Before the utilities were eliminated, residents received extraordinarily high monthly gas and electricity bills, due to a shared meter issue. Instead of providing electricity to one tenant, a single meter was often hooked up to multiple residents’ homes, causing them to be charged for their neighbors’ power consumption. The meters were seized by Con Edison and National Grid after Varveris failed to amend the issue and pay the bills that had accumulated as a result of it.

Varveris owns 15 six-family houses in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, as well as properties outside New York. In a similar case at another one of his buildings, residents at 420 Clinton Avenue initiated a rent strike over 10 years ago after he allegedly ignored longstanding repairs and a meter tampering issue at the 49-unit complex, according to an April 6, 1999 Daily News article.

The problem has still not been resolved. One of the residents, Concepcion Morastitla, received a gas meter from National Gird over a month ago after not having heat or hot water for several months, forcing her to boil water on electric burners for baths.

Morastitla, an unemployed, single mother, said the ordeal has affected her four children, who are anxious that the utilities may be shut off at any time.

Rodolfa Morales and Armando Xinol suspect that their son Alexis Xinol developed acute asthma as a result of their apartment’s unhealthy living conditions. (Maane Khatchatourian/The Brooklyn Ink)

Three-year resident Armando Xinol suspects that his seven-year-old son Alexis developed acute asthma because of the apartment’s unhealthy living conditions that include mold on the bathroom ceiling, lack of heat due to broken radiators and gaps beneath doors and windows that Xinol had to cover with tape to block the entrance of cold air.

Another resident, Ariadna Mendez, whose asthmatic younger brother and elderly parents recently moved out due to the apartment’s unreliable heat and electricity, said the fight has been an uphill battle, but one waged as a united front.

“We want to live fairly; we’re not asking for anything else,” Mendez, a five-year resident, said. “We just really want this to end. … There come times when I wanted to give up, but I’m going to keep going.”

Mendez was the first tenant to stop paying rent in June 2010 to force Varveris to make apartment repairs. Another tenant followed her lead in September and the rest of the residents joined them when their electricity shut off in October.

Ariadna Mendez and Marc Vizcarrondo were the first residents to stop paying rent in June 2010. (Maane Khatchatourian/The Brooklyn Ink)

Her boyfriend and housemate Marc Vizcarrondo said the tenants shouldn’t have to pay rent for two years as consolation for the trauma they’ve experienced.

As Varveris decides his course of action, the tenants are more determined than ever to continue fighting until their demands for more livable conditions are completely met.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be an eviction or a monetary law suit, which they don’t have the money to pay me anyway,” Varveris said.