One of the vehicles in the Brooklyn Van Lines service that has gained popularity in the last year due to MTA bus cancellations. (Photo: Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

Weekday mornings Osmond Thorne takes commuters and children to school, but he is not driving a bus or subway train. He is behind the wheel of a 15-person commuter van.

The vans are a cheap and convenient way to get around Brooklyn, but they also skirt city regulations by regularly straying outside of their licensed routes to get more passengers.

A round of MTA bus cancellations last year led more passengers to depend on commuter vans such as Thorne’s Brooklyn Van Lines service. After the bus cancellations, many Brooklyn residents endured longer travel time to work and were stuck taking several subway lines to visit the Prospect Park area.

“By not having the service they are cut off not just to the rest of Brooklyn, but to the rest of the city and that’s very unfortunate,” says Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association, an independent urban research and advocacy group for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region.

Whenever the MTA has to cut costs, it’s the riders who suffer the most, particularly those who lose service in areas where there are few transportation options, Zupan says.

One solution was the Group Ride Vehicle program. In September 2010 the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission gave private commuter van companies a special license to pick up passengers along five cancelled bus routes in Brooklyn and Queens. Thorne’s Brooklyn Van Lines was licensed to stop along the old B71 route, which served parts of Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights.

The program led to an increase in people using Thorne’s vans as an alternative to public transportation.

Dave Abraham, chair of Transportation Alternatives’ Brooklyn Committee, says before the Group Van Ride program many former MTA customers may have not trusted less official-looking van services.

Sarah Collins uses Brooklyn Van Lines to take her children to and from school. Collins lives in Red Hook and has been riding with Thorne since the beginning of last school year. During the ride to school, she chats with other parents among the sounds of their noisy children. “For day to day commuting it has been perfect,” she says.

Ty Jones also uses Brooklyn Van Lines to take her child from her home in Crown Heights to her babysitter in Park Slope. From there Jones can easily hop on the subway to her job in Manhattan.

This May, however, the TLC cancelled the last remaining van line because of “sporadic service they had been providing along the B71 route,” according to TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg.

The action didn’t diminish Brooklyn Van Lines’ business, however. The company still had its standard TLC license and continued picking up passengers along that route, despite rules, that according to Fromberg of the TLC, do not permit the vans to pick up passengers in much of the area of the former B71 route.

Brooklyn Van Lines still charges the $2 pickup and drop off fee that it did with the TLC program, with passengers negotiating what to pay if they want to go outside of the old B71 route.

Jones feels lucky that she was able to find a cheap mode of transportation when the B71 line was cancelled: “Without this service I would have to pay $10 each way for a cab.”

Andrea Vaughn, who has been taking commuter vans since December, also feels fortunate for their existence. When the B71 was cancelled her commute went from 20 minutes to up to an hour. She had to take two buses to her job at the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch. Now it takes her only 15 minutes and she also has “some good conversation” along with her commute.

Vaughn has been telling people in her area about the commuter vans on the neighborhood blog she writes for, The Word on Columbia Street. “Word of mouth has been very strong,” she says.

Another commuter van rider who is also helping spread the word is Marta Heilborn. She takes a Brooklyn Van Lines van to her job in the Grand Army Plaza area. She recalled how she recently met a woman on the street who was complaining about having to take three subway lines to work. Heilborn told her about the van service she uses.

Word of mouth has helped Brooklyn Van Lines’ business grow. Thorne attributes some of this increase to the beginning of the school year. The parents who have been using his service since the last school year have been telling others about it.

As a result, Thorne hopes to soon add more vans to serve the old B71 bus passengers. In the meantime, with the cold weather quickly approaching, he is sure that more people will call him for a ride.

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Catherine Charlot with one of her creations: a jacket made entirely out of umbrellas (Sanya Khetani/ The Brooklyn Ink)

Bad weather puts Catherine Charlot in a good mood. Armed with her shopping cart, Charlot is a familiar sight in Gowanus and Park Slope after a storm hits, scanning the streets and rummaging through garbage cans for broken and discarded umbrellas. She is often mistaken for a homeless woman, but Charlot remains unfazed, because in her own small way, she is making a difference.

Charlot, a 45-year old Haitian immigrant, is the owner and designer of Himane, a clothing and accessory company she created in 2004. Charlot uses discarded umbrellas, old shirts, jeans, boots, plastic bags and even furniture upholstery to create dresses, shirts, purses, bags and laptop cases, among other things; a process that is called “upcycling”.

The term “upcycling” was popularized in 2002 by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. McDonough and Braungart argue that upcycling prevents the wastage of potentially useful objects by using them to create new products. According to their book, reducing the use of new raw materials reduces energy usage, air pollution, water pollution and even greenhouse gas emissions.

Upcycling has gained acceptance in New York City, with people converting old suitcases into furniture, bottles into chandeliers and even guns into jewelry. But eco-consciousness is not the only thing that makes Charlot a Good Samaritan. Ten percent of Himane’s profits go towards building a school in Haiti for teenagers and young adults.

Charlot named her company after her mother, who inculcated in her a love for reusing things. These values, in combination with an ability to sew, drew her to fashion at the age of 13. “On my birthday, my mother took me [to a dressmaker] to get a dress made. When I went to pick up my dress, I didn’t like it, and I said no one would ever make any dress for me,” she says. She made her first dress from her father’s old shirt.

Charlot soon set up her own clothing business in Haiti, but it was only in 2002, after she came to America that she began to explore the concept of using umbrellas to make bags and clothes. Charlot wanted to make waterproof products, but she could not afford the fabric available in the city. She looked closer to home, and on cleaning her closet, found an old umbrella “and I thought, ‘hmm, umbrella: waterproof; let me try it’,” she says.

Charlot removes the umbrella’s wires, washes and presses them, and finally cuts them up for her designs, which she retails through various clothing stores in the neighborhood.

Despite the growing popularity of her brand in New York, Charlot remains deeply invested in Haiti’s future. She says it was her mother’s dream that she build a school to try to help children who didn’t have anything. Charlot was initially reluctant, but her mother’s sudden death four years ago at the age of 63 was a wake-up call. Charlot decided it was time she gave back to her community, in spite of financial troubles. “Business isn’t booming, [but] even if it takes ten years, even if it is just one room, I would like to have that one room stand; and even if I can work with only five kids, I will do it,” she says.

As soon as the school is built, Charlot plans to return to Haiti to teach there. She wants it to be an art and design school that will not only show Haitians the importance of recycling “because we have a lot of garbage there,” but also “give them something in their hands so that they can go out and support their families,” she says.

Charlot says that recycling and eco-awareness is necessary not only in Haiti, but in America as well, which is why she is trying to do her bit with Himane. “I think the landfills are screaming at us that they can’t take anymore,” she says. “This is not something big, but if all of us try to recycle instead of getting rid of everything it can make a big difference.”

The view along Summit Street to the BQE trench from Anna Patrone's childhood home. (Alex Gecan/The Brooklyn Ink)

A block away from the trench in which the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway parallels Hicks Street, an old lady sat in the shade of her childhood home and remembered a quieter era of trolley cars, milkmen and neighbors who spoke to each other.

“We walked everywhere,” she said. “Walking was the way of life at that time.”

Last Sunday Anna Patrone, who grew up at 83 Summit St. and will be 93 years old in December, addressed a small gathering in the Summit Street Garden, adjacent to her former home. At the invitation of the garden’s proprietors, they had come to hear her talk about Brooklyn as it was over 60 years ago.

At that time, there was no chasm severing the Columbia Street waterfront from the rest of Brooklyn; neither had that section of what is now the BQE run into the as-yet unconstructed Gowanus Expressway to effectively cut the entire neighborhood of Red Hook off from the rest of the borough.

Patrone mentioned the man who would walk the streets at sundown to ignite the gas lamps that lit the streets by night. She recalled that there were buggies and wagons with vegetables for sale—the vegetables that the residents did not grow themselves—up and down the streets of the neighborhood, as well as milkmen and a slew of other specialized delivery services.

But Patrone’s childhood was not without its share of danger. While there were some routes through the neighborhood that were safe, there were others—Carroll Street for example—that were “scary.” “There were young boys who were devilish,” said Patrone, recalling the beat cop who would occasionally escort her and her friends home.

And just after the Great Depression—during which, Patrone recalled, there were shantytowns where the Red Hook Houses now stand—the B.Q.E. came to town. The home of Antoinette Porta, Patrone’s aunt, was torn down to make room for the thruway, as were many other houses and one of the two Catholic churches in the neighborhood.

Sitting in a neighborhood now cut off from public transportation, Patrone thought back to the trolley cars that she would ride to Coney Island as a child and, later, the ones that she and her husband would ride out to Prospect Park.

“The whole world is changing,” she said, “and I don’t think for the better.”

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Traffic Island Irks Merchants

Bus cuts hurt Brooklyn

If you take the city at its word, not much. Pretty much everything about a community board is advisory in nature. Here’s what the city’s Web site says about what the boards cannot do: “The Community Board, its District Manager, and its office staff serve as advocates and service coordinators for the community and its residents. They cannot order any City agency or official to perform any task, but Boards are usually successful in resolving the problems they address.” Ouch. That’s not to say the boards don’t have sway, or that they don’t play a big role in addressing community concerns. But Summit Academy can breathe; the final word on their move hasn’t been written yet.

P.S. Here’s a Time article about (what else?) the EP and the Gowanus Canal.

Three Brooklyn residents weigh in on the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to place the Gowanus Canal on the Superfund site list.

After 20 years, the legendary hardware store has moved from Jay Street to a Gowanus location between a Home Depot and a Lowe’s.

“It’s more convenient for the people who shop here,” Sharda Ramcharan tells The Ink.

“We have a parking lot, we don’t have to worry, and it’s basically the same.”

Ramcharan did, however, concede that a lot of people missed the downtown location.

Sid’s Filed for Chapter 11.

[The Eagle] on the move.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency put the Gowanus Canal on its list of Superfund sites on Tuesday. The 1.8-mile canal in the midst of Brooklyn has been contaminated by heavy industry over the last century. Now the feds are stepping in for the big clean-up. The decision is controversial and will have many repercussions.

Lenore Cho and Sudip Mukherjee delved into the discussion and found out who is for the Superfund declaration and who is against it and what their reasons are.

Pro Superfund:

Clean water activists, community groups and local politicians rejoiced about the declaration, which will likely require extensive clean-up over the next dozen years.

Riverkeeper, a New York watchdog group that studies polluted waterways, has long been an advocate of federal intervention at the canal. Josh Verleun, the group’s attorney and chief investigator, said the Superfund label is extremely helpful because it requires chief polluters named by the E.P.A. to pay for the cleanup activities.

“The E.P.A. can bring these companies to the table and make them financially responsible for their contaminants,” Verleun said. “The Gowanus Canal is a very contaminated site, in need of a complex, expensive remediation. Forcing big-time polluters to pay for their mistakes lightens the burden on federal funding.”

Verleun also worked with various neighborhood groups that strongly supported the idea of Superfund status for the canal, and said 85 percent of the respondents to the E.P.A.’s survey of residents living nearby said they approved of the idea.

One local group, called the Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy, works to promote community knowledge of, and participation in, the maintenance of the city’s coastal waters. For years, the group has worked with interested residents and area college professors to study the canal, including ways to clean up all the toxic pollution.

“We are very happy with the outcome and think the Superfund (designation) is the beginning of a pathway that leads to a cleaner, better Gowanus Canal,” said Ludger Balan, executive and environmental program director of the Urban Divers.

According to Balan, the waters in the canal are so contaminated that the bulkhead and land surrounding the canal are becoming eroded. Additionally, because of excess water and sewage pooled in the canal, there is more harmful bacterial content in the Gowanus than in any other body in New York City. “The Superfund will bring real efforts to controlling a dangerous problem in Brooklyn,” he said.

Many local businessmen and politicians, including Mayor Bloomberg, have been opposed to the Superfund designation. Some have said it would taint the reputation of the area, while others have fought for the Bloomberg administration’s plans for the Gowanus – including the use of Army Corps engineers to remove excess, foul-smelling sediment from the canal bed.

“The problem with the mayor’s [solution] is that it is based on a whole pile of assumptions that is unlikely to go anywhere,” said Jim Vogel, a spokesman for State Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D-18^th District) who had earlier commended the E.P.A.’s announcement. “The mayor’s plan depends on a lot of resources we are not sure we can even get at this point,” Vogel said. “The Superfund is real, committed and will get the canal cleaned.”

As for notions that the federal government’s help will lead to lost real estate development, Verleun said prospective homeowners within New York State are already familiar with the canal’s reputation for pollution and smell.

“It’s notorious for being the poster child of New York’s contaminated waterways, so of course some people outside of the area with no knowledge of the city might look down on the area,” he said.

“But people invest time in researching the areas where they move. And with the Superfund, I believe a thoroughly exhaustive cleanup of the Gowanus Canal will make it a more desirable place to live.”

Anti Superfund:

The EPA’s announcement struck a blow to the Brooklyn housing and development community.

Toll Brothers Inc. announced it would halt a proposed development along the canal, saying the stigma of a Superfund label would scare off potential buyers. The builders in 2006 began plans for a mixed-use luxury development, with 447 housing units, 2,000 square feet of retail space, and a landscaped park on Bond Street, along the banks of the waterway.

“We’re very disappointed,” said David Von Spreckelsen, senior vice president at Toll Brothers. “We thought that the mayor had a viable alternative cleanup plan we were pushing for. Obviously the EPA didn’t feel that way. Designating the site as Superfund is really going to set the canal back for many, many years, – decades probably – until we see it get cleaned up.”

The move was seen as a setback for others in the business community, too. The Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing and development, has been fighting the Superfund status since the E.P.A. announced it was under consideration last April.

“It’s devastating, because people do not realize what is attached to this,” said Bill Appel, executive director of the group. “It’ll be years before they begin any cleanup because the EPA operates using litigation. It’s a loss to the community. Any development will just come to a halt.”

Appel’s group backed a plan by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration to clean up the canal using city money. The city had offered its own plan to clean up the canal, using $175 of its own funds.

“We’re disappointed,” said Marc LaVorgna, a city spokesman. “The stigma can cause divestment and deter development. We had an approach that would get us to a Superfund-level cleanup faster by avoiding any potential major litigation.”

Appel says residents in the area would be hardest hit. “We advocate and do our best to develop affordable housing in the Gowanus area, that will just come to a halt,” Appel said.

Appel and his group are members of the Clean Gowanus Now! Coalition, a group of affordable housing and business advocates. The group points to a survey of major financial lenders last year who said it would be nearly impossible for a buyer to obtain a mortgage on a residential property within 3,000 feet of an E.P.A. Superfund site.

“All development has been stopped today,” said a longtime area realtor, who declined to be named. “Economically I think this is not good. This is going to cause economic hardships for people.”

Takeshi Yamada of Coney Island presents a piece from his 'monster babies' series. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

By Terry Baynes

A line of people snaked down 7^th Street outside the Bell House  on Sunday night.  The cluster of activity was an oddity in the dark, industrial streets of Gowanus.

“Nice to bring some life to this part of the neighborhood,” one man said to his friend.  The smell of beer hung in the damp air.  Another man made small talk with his female companion.  “I was talking to Kenny before, and he was like, ‘Why are you even going to that?  It’s gross!’”

Near the entrance of the club, a woman with bright yellow dreadlocks and a Marilyn Manson lookalike by her side handed her ID to the bouncer.   She paid her $4 cover and received an invisible stamp on her hand, which turned out to be a glowing owl under the bouncer’s blue flashlight.

A man squeezed past the line and through the doorway.  In each hand, he held a large chandelier made of goats’ skulls in ornate circles.  In the foyer, an event organizer in a pink sports coat spoke to two British journalists with a video camera about his expectations for the night’s taxidermy competition.

Inside the main hall, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” blasted from the speakers overhead.  Young people held plastic cups of beer at their chests and shouted to each other over the music. In the corner, one group listened to a man with an unkempt afro and beard.  In one hand, he held his plastic cup of alcohol.  With the other, he rested a large brown iguana on his chest.

“It’s a crazy story,” he began.  “I’d been dating a girl for 6 months when she died from carbon monoxide poisoning.  You know, like from her kitchen stove.  I inherited her iguana.  When it died two years later, I had it stuffed.  It’s named Chris, after her, and it sits on a pedestal in my house.”

Next, a young woman stepped forward to tell the story of the garfish in her hand—its long pointy mouth almost poking her in the chin.  “It has very sharp teeth,” she said and proceeded to tell the story of how her grandfather caught the fish decades ago and bequeathed it to her.

Soon the lights dimmed, and a woman took the stage for the pedagogical part of the evening.  She wore zip-up fur vest, a mini-skirt and knee-high leather boots.  Wooden bird earrings dangled from her ears.  She was introduced as “beast mistress” Melissa Milgrom, author of the forthcoming book, Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy.  She presented a crash course in taxidermy history and terminology.  Taxidermy, she said, is “the science and art of creating the illusion of life.”  Animals are not stuffed; they’re mounted.  Animal skin doesn’t lose its elasticity; it loses its memory.

At one point, Milgrom mentioned squirrels, and the crowd erupted in cheers.  She ran across the stage, grabbed a squirrel that had been mounted mid-scamper and placed it in front of her on the speaker’s podium.  The audience went wild.

After the talk, contestants paraded their still life creations across the stage.  First up was a middle-aged woman named Maureen who unveiled a large hawk on a pedestal.  The bird was named Jane and had been in her family ever since Maureen was born.  She reminisced back to when the bird was bigger than her, when she used to dress it in baby clothes.  Maureen once returned home from college to find Jane in a closet with its head snapped off.  She was shocked, remembering how she used to ride the bird like a rocking horse without breaking it.  Nevertheless, she reattached the head, restoring Jane to her former glory.

Jane was followed by Chloe, a scruffy miniature dog curled up in a ball on a cushion.  “She was the runt of the litter,” said the entrant who had attended taxidermy school in Montana.  She explained that Chloe had not fared well in prior competitions.  “She must have looked sad compared to the Billy goats prancing up a mountain side,” the contestant said.  “Or the school of goldfish swimming around a treasure chest.”

The parade of specimens continued—some more horrifying than others.  Takeshi Yamada, a Japanese man from Coney Island, presented his series of monster babies that he claimed to have made from samples of his own peeled skin and hair.  One woman held up an earring made of a rat diaphragm in epoxy resin and then dropped it on stage.  The judges joined her on hands and knees to hunt for the lost entry.

The judges eventually found the night’s winner in Felis Fightus Dansicus, a pair of interlocking cats.  On their backs, the cats wrestled for dominance.  Upright, they danced.  Their owner stroked them throughout the presentation.

By the end of the night, the man with the iguana and afro had found the two British journalists with the video camera.  This time, according to the journalists, he confessed to the camera that his story about the dead girlfriend was completely fabricated.  The girl with him also admitted that she hadn’t really inherited the garfish from her grandfather.  She bought it on Ebay.